(http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/MSNBC/Components/Photo/_new/130517-cannes-9a.photoblog600.jpg)Sebastien Nogier / EPAFrench police officers stand guard Friday outside the Cannes hotel that was targeted.By Nancy Ing and Erin McClam, NBC NewsPremiering this year at the Cannes Film Festival: “To Catch a Thief.”
Someone tore a safe off a hotel room wall and made off Friday with $1 million worth of jewels that stars were going to borrow for the red carpet at the most celebrated gathering in cinema. A police source told NBC News that it was probably an inside job.
The source said that the safe was stolen from the hotel room of an American employee of Chopard, a Swiss luxury jeweler that has decked the likes of Julianne Moore in its glittering gems to show off at Cannes.
The employee is responsible for jewelry for stars and was not in her room at the time, the source said. It’s common for employees of jewelers to stay out all night during events like the Cannes festival, either surveying the loaned-out jewelry or recovering pieces of it from the stars after parties.
The heist took place about 5 a.m. Cannes time, French media reported. French judicial police were investigating.
Chopard also makes the Palme d’Or, the award for best picture at Cannes and arguably the top prize in film. Festival organizers wouldn’t say where the Palme was being kept Friday but assured reporters it was safe. The jewelry house planned a news conference later Friday.
On its Facebook and Tumblr pages, Chopard features stars wearing its spectacular wares on the red carpet. Just Thursday, Moore wore a dazzling platinum necklace packed with 56 total carats of diamonds. The English model Cara Delevingne sported glittering Chopard chandelier earrings.
The singer-songwriter Lana del Rey chose Chopard for the second straight year, and was photographed at Cannes in extravagant earrings of yellow and white gold set with emeralds.
Police swarmed the hotel, a four-star Novotel, and were combing through surveillance footage and grilling potential witnesses.
The festival, which draws thousands of industry insiders to the palm-lined shores of the Mediterranean Sea, opened Wednesday and runs through May 26. One of the films premiering there this year is “The Bling Ring,” a Sofia Coppola-directed drama about a group of teenagers who rob celebrity homes and brag about it on Facebook.
Among the films competing for Chopard’s Palme this year are five from the United States, with directors including Steven Soderbergh and the Coen brothers. The Iranian director Asghar Farhadi premiered a drama called “Le Passe” at Cannes on Friday to huge buzz. Steven Spielberg heads the jury.
Besides being a competition for cinema prestige — and a staging ground for legendarily lavish parties — Cannes is a showcase for jewelers and fashion designers, who drape the stars in their goods.
High-end jewelry stores along the French Riviera have been a favorite target of professional thieves for years. In February, thieves ran off with $1 million worth of luxury watches from a jewelry store along the main drag in Cannes.
A notorious ring of jewelry thieves known as the Pink Panthers have struck the French Riviera and Monaco repeatedly over the past decade. The source said investigators have not ruled them out but said the break-in does not follow their pattern.
Reuters contributed to this report.Related:- Full movies coverage from TODAY Entertainment (http://www.today.com/entertainment/tag/movies)
This story was originally published on Fri May 17, 2013 8:40 AM EDT
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